The Empty City

Changing Prime Ministers mid-term and the constitution

12th May 2026

How gaining or losing a Prime Minister between general elections in the norm and not the exception

There is perhaps a ‘classic’ view – which like many ‘classic’ views is not really true – that a Prime Minister comes in with a general election and then goes out at a General Election.

Like Disraeli and Gladstone did in Victorian days, or Attlee did between 1945 and 1951.

But since 1974 that has not happened.

Every Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 1974 has either taken office between general elections or lost office between general elections – and recently even both.

Some would say that 1974 is not a sound starting point, as Heath sought to stay on and do a deal after the February election, and we would have to go back to 1970.

Those who came in between general elections since 1974: Callaghan, Major, Brown, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak.

Those who left office between general elections since 1974: Wilson, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss.

Those who did both: May, Johnson, Truss – though at least May and Johnson fought general elections during their term as Prime Minister.

Compare and contrast that with parties losing office between elections: that rarely happens, even if we go back a long time.

In 1905 the Conservative and Liberal Unionist coalition lost office to the Liberals, months before a general election. Some of the national and wartime coalitions mid-century shifted between general elections. But straight party swaps are few.

More recently even the loss of an overall majority – in the late 1970s or the early 1990s – merely meant the minority administration staggered on.

And so we have two cycles: the party cycle and the Prime Minister cycle.

The party cycle generally accords with general elections. Invariably the party in government who lose at a general election is the party which won the one before.

The Prime Minister cycle, however, only incidentally accords with general elections. Since 1974 general elections account for only a portion of the arrivals and departures from office.

As we seem to be about to change (yet) another Prime Minister between general elections, it is useful to remind ourselves that we (still) have very much a parliamentary rather than presidential system of government.

Even those most presidential of Prime Ministers – Thatcher and Blair – left office mid-term.

Whilst they have office some Prime Ministers can be hubristic – think Johnson or Truss – but they quickly meet with Nemesis.

The body politic regurgitated and spat them out.

And with Starmer, the surprise would be if he actually did lose office with a general election. If so, he would be the first Labour Prime Minister since Wilson between 1964 and 1970 to win and lose office at general elections.

But it always seems to take us by surprise when a Prime Minister loses office between general elections, as if some norm has been subverted.

The true subversion would be if a Prime Minister who won a general election was able to continue to defeat at a general election.

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The Chagos Islands are an index of British international weakness

6th May 2026

In decision after decision, the United Kingdom simply has to accept the changing will of the United States

As there are elections over Great Britain tomorrow, this blog goes from the local to the far-away: in particular to the Chagos Islands, otherwise known as the British Indian Ocean Territory.

The Chagos Islands are an index of actual British international influence – because things keep on being decided about them without it mattering what the United Kingdom government itself wants, even though we are the nominal controlling power.

Not long ago there was a deal which suited the United States, who has a military presence on the largest island, where the islands went (back) to Mauritius. The United Kingdom had to go along with it.

And then more recently, as I set out over at Prospect, the United States changed its mind – well, President Trump did. And again, the United Kingdom had to go along with it.

The curious thing is that the islands have an immense symbolic hold on the conservative mind as a surviving remnant of British imperial power, when the reality is the repeated demonstration of just how weak British power and influence now is over its own territory.

And as the relative international power of the United Kingdom continues to decline, we will no doubt have more examples of the contest between symbolism and reality.

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The purpose of processes and policies and law in government is not to make things better, but to stop things being even worse

5th May 2026

The real reason we need rules and procedures in public administration

It is a paradox that in the weeks and days before an election people tend to become less interested in law and policy. The focus instead turns to politics and personalities, and the soap opera of who is up and who is down, and who is in and who is out.

And in the days after the elections, those who could not predict the outcome will confidently assert that the result proved them right all along.

This is not really a politics blog, and it has no party-partisan preference. Indeed, the general view of the blog is that governments tend to be illiberal, regardless of which politicians take power, and that the politicians who affect to be liberal in opposition tend not to carry that liberalism over into office.

As the eminent jurists the Bonzo Dog Band aver, it can seem that no matter who you vote for the government always gets in.

But.

We have in popular opposition not only those parading their liberalism, but the illiberalism, and so voters have a choice between the possibility of liberalism (and likely disappointment) and the certainty of illiberalism (and likely despotism).

And so it is at times like that we should take more interest in the actual workings of government and now public administration works. We should watch how public administration is conducted with anxious scrutiny.

This is why, perhaps counter-intuitively, the whole Starmer-Mandelson-Robbins affair is important.

In respect of political drama, the matter may not be of lasting import: the media caravan has moved on, and the attention-spans of the easily bored have been exhausted. The Prime Minister is still in office and if he is to be deposed, then it will because of a further political drama and not the one which has just passed.

The importance of what happened is otherwise than of immediate political effect. It was instead in the rare insight we had into how ministers and officials actually do make decisions (or don’t make decisions). The sort of thing which is usually hidden from public view.

An excellent balanced and informed account of the matter has now been posted at the Substack of the estimable former civil servant Martin Stanley. That post is required reading for anybody with an interest in our government in action (or inaction).

What I can add from the perspective of a former central government lawyer is that the informal-formal inexact process and lack of process is not unusual in Whitehall. The only difference here is that a stone has been lifted and we get to see what was teeming underneath.

(Public administration is more about teems than teams.)

Sometimes one can fall into the error of thinking government and administration is about the neat, almost-Euclidean geometry of decision trees and straight lines on a grand plane of an organogram. No, it is often a mess, both at the time and when there has to be an account of it afterwards.

This is why one the purpose of processes and policies and public law is not so much to make things go well, but to help stop things being worse. For example, the law of public procurement is not really there to help public authorities to make good purchasing decisions, but to stop public authorities making worse purchasing decisions than they otherwise would do.

And this is the significance of the Starmer-Mandelson-Robbins affair: we got to see under the rock. From that we can take the wider understanding that this is how important decisions and indecisions are made more generally. And that, in turn, helps explain why we have such an accountability gap in the government of the United Kingdom.

There is a general disconnect between how ministers and officials take decisions and how those decisions are accounted for to parliament, and to the media and public.

Certain executive-minded pundits and activists want to reduce even further the role of processes and policies and public law in government – to get rid of impediments and barriers.

They think that will make public administration better and more effective, but it is more likely to make public administration even worse than it already is.

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Trump is suing his own government for $10 billion

May Day, 2026

And he wants to negotiate with his own government for a settlement sum

One thing about fundamental legal principles is that they are rarely expressly feature in litigation – at least not expressly. That is because they are fundamental – they are shared and assumed to apply.

Such principle provide the “rules of the game” and the courts deal with disputes about things the parties do not share in common, like differing views on the facts and on the applicable law in a particular situation.

This is why – at least until fairly recently – constitutional law text books both here and in the United States often did not have many recent cases as precedents or even illustrations of certain fundamental principles. An 1800s case there, a 1700s case here, some vague mention of Magna Carta, and that would be it – for paragraph after paragraph, and chapter after chapter.

But the Brexit-Trump years have changed this. Such is the jolt to the United Kingdom and United States polities that certain hitherto constitutional and legal norms in the background have to the fore. Points which one never expected to be the subject of a practical case now fall for judicial determination.

And in the United States we have a case which goes to the very heart of any litigation system, with the court having to ask “what actually is a dispute?”.

That case, of course, is the one where Donald Trump is suing the United States Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service.

I have written about this case this week over at Prospect – click here.

Although nominally Trump is doing this (with his son and company) in a personal capacity, and not formally as president, the reality is that the president is suing his own administration – for $10 billion.

And so in reality he wants to negotiate, with himself, and to agree, with himself, for a resolution where the suit is compromised for a high amount of money, in the region one suspects of $10 billion.

It is an extraordinary case, even at a time of many extraordinary cases.

In one way, Trump has a point: he was legally wronged by the Treasury and IRS. His tax returns were unlawfully leaked. And this is the case even if he, like other presidents, should have voluntarily disclosed his tax returns to the public. There has been a prosecution and a conviction of the leaker.

A follow-on civil case is not thereby surprising, for generally (but not universally) when there is a crime there is also a tort.

(That said, there was once an over-confident law lecturer who insisted that there was a tort for every crime and challenged the class to gainsay him, to which one annoying student offered ‘blasphemy’. Sorry.)

So if Trump has been civilly wronged, he should in principle be able to bring a case for damages.

But what makes this case problematic is that he currently controls both sides of the litigation.

This is because of his position as head of government, and also because of an executive order which prevents any federal body or employee from putting forward a view of law distinct from the president.

All this means that not only is he effectively litigating with himself, he would also be effectively negotiating with himself for settling that litigation.

(A great deal of civil litigation ends in settlement.)

There is a legal principle so fundamental that it is sometimes described as one of the very rules of natural justice.

This principle is that a person should not be a judge in their own cause.

Here the application of the principle would be that a person should not settle a legal dispute with themselves. Indeed, one can fairly ask if there is a dispute at all in such circumstances.

And that is what the federal judge has asked in this case.

In this fascinating four-page order judge Kathleen Williams goes back to the very first principles of law to ask whether there is actually a dispute here to be determined.

She did not dismiss the case, but she is now seeking legal argument on the point.

Given there has been a civil wrong to Trump, there is the question of how his private law rights could be enforced against the government while he is a sitting president.

Perhaps the case should be stayed for the duration of his presidency, without prejudice to any limitation period. Or perhaps independent attorneys should be selected to litigate the case on the parties’ behalf, with Trump blind to their litigation decisions, or there could be some binding independent third-party adjudication.

There are various ways his legal position could be reserved or protected so that he is not simply negotiating a settlement with himself.

When litigation lawyers are trained they are warned about sham litigation cases where for money laundering or other purposes an artificial dispute is contrived and then “settled” for a huge a mount of cash changing hands.

What is happening in the United States is not a sham case: Trump has a claim.

But there are ways and means of bringing a claim, some less artificial than others, and the federal court in the United States now has to work out a way for Trump’s claim to be addressed while avoiding the spectacle of the president negotiating with his own federal employees for a cash payment of up to $10 billion.

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Making sense of the week which was

26th April 2026

What, if anything, is the constitutional and legal significance of the fall-out from the Starmer-Robbins matter?

From a political perspective this last week or so in the United Kingdom has certainly been exciting and dramatic.

As set out in the last post here, we have a Prime Minister making a succession of bad decisions, and blaming and sacking others for those decisions.

In particular, we have a Prime Minister who speaks often about process sacking a senior foreign office official without any process whatsoever.

And as I have described at Prospect, that sacking by a Prime Minister who demands of the civil service that things are ‘delivered’ was of an official who worked out a way of ‘delivering’ the appointment of an Ambassador which the Prime Minister, against cabinet secretary advice, had publicly announced prematurely.

This is all a fascinating political spectacle.

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But.

So what?

What is the legal or constitutional significance of what has happened – and what is happening?

From a lega(isitc) perspective not much: the overall result of the vetting (as opposed to the personal information vetted) was probably legally open to Olly Robbins to share with the Prime Minister. But there was also no legal obligation on him to share that information either. We are dealing here with discretion and policy, not rules and obligations.

What Robbins did and did not do with the vetting assessment was probably neither lawful nor unlawful, for it was not a matter of law.

(There is, of course, an important legal point about the dismissal of Robbins – and it is difficult to imagine a stronger case for unfair dismissal in this sort of context.)

Constitutionally, there is an interesting point here about whether it was appropriate for a senior official charged with making this decision to not share the Cabinet Office vetting assessment with the Prime Minister.

Usually, the information about ambassadorial vetting stays with the head of the foreign office civil service, and one can see the point of that with career diplomats.

But when the appointment is external and essentially political and (publicly) directed by the Prime Minister then there is a good argument that the official should place the Prime Minister in the position they should be so as to be properly accountable to Parliament (and the public) for that decision. And there is a strong argument that, by omission, the Prime Minister should not be misled as the vetting exercise.

Yet, when one has an incurious Prime Minister, not asking the appropriate questions and who demands ‘delivery’ – of solutions, not problems – one can begin to see why what happened, happened.

(A follower of this blog messaged to say that Starmer always wanting ‘delivery’ to be both without impediments but also error-free, is about Starmer’s own ‘cake-ism’.)

Add the (fair) security concerns that sensitive information not have wider circulation that necessary, you can see why Robbins did what he did (and did not do), especially as Downing Street is leaky.

Indeed, the only actual security breach in all this is that the media and the public even know about the Ambassador’s vetting failure by means of a leak. For that information to be in the public domain in this manner indicates a serious security breach somewhere.

As the Prime Minister has now said at the despatch box both that the original decision was wrong and that his decision to sack Robbins was right, one could perhaps say that the constitutional aspect of this matter is being addressed.

He has accounted to Parliament, and he is still in office – and he has not and is not facing any vote of no confidence.

As I stated at the time at Prospect, the real constitutional importance in all this lays in the House of Commons vote earlier this year that the Prime Minister and Cabinet could not be trusted to make decisions about the the applicability of the ‘national security’ exemption to the release of the Mandelson appointment documents. Those decisions were instead to be made by a parliamentary committee.

For Parliament to decide not to trust the Prime Minister and Cabinet in this way on national security was, in any meaningful way, a vote of no confidence. For this blog, that was the point the Prime Minister ought to have resigned.

Now the Prime Minister is dealing with the direct and indirect consequences of that vote: the placing into the public domain of documents beyond his control – and the prior (perhaps tactical?) leaking of sensitive information in respect of the documents that may be disclosed.

This is an actual example of a Prime Minister who is in office, but not in power – at least in respect of the Mandelson papers.

There may be further disclosures in this news story which does not seem to be going away.

At some point a constitutional point may be taken, and a vote of no confidence is put forward. Alternatively, the Prime Minister may lose the confidence of his own cabinet and offer his own resignation (or plan for departure). Who knows.

But what is certain is that this matter shows how a Prime Minister can be held to account for a bad decision which they made – and for a bad decision for which they are now running out of other people to blame and sack.

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Robbins Nest

22nd April 2026

Towards understanding an almighty mess

There was once a bad decision, and then there was a worse decision, and then there was an even worse decision.

The bad decision was, of course, the appointment by the Prime Minister to appoint Lord Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States. At the time few expressly objected and some saw merit in such a sui generis appointment to deal with a sui generis President – a Trump Whisperer. (Though we had a perfectly competent Ambassador in place who was good at that too.)

The worse decision was how the Prime Minister opted to react when information was published about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein. He blamed Mandelson for lying, he blamed the civil servants for not telling him about a vetting exercise. He was “furious”. His chief of staff was sacked. He decided it was everybody’s fault, but his own.

And then there was the worst of the decisions, at least from the perspective of his overall credibility. He sacked Oliver Robbins, the head of the foreign office civil service. This has not only poisoned the civil service against a serving premier, but also Robbins’ evidence before a select committee persuasively shows that Robbins and the Foreign Office were simply seeking to find a way to implement a decision which the Prime Minister had prematurely announced (against civil service advice) and which Number 10 staff were pressing (bullying?) the Foreign Office to approve without delay.

The Prime Minister accepts there was a process in place which Robbins followed: that is why the process has been changed. But he sacked Robbins for following that process which he accepts was in place.

And now Robbins can explain, from the outside, what happened.

Had the Prime Minister just owned the original bad decision – which as this blog has previously stated was his own decision – instead of blaming and sacking others, then the second and third mistakes would not have been made.

One can only wonder what further mistakes are to come.

Once this blog has fully digested the Robbins evidence yesterday, there may be more to come on here, at least.

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The decision of a Prime Minister

19 April 2026

Only one person decided to appoint Lord Mandelson

Once upon a time there was a ruler who made a bad decision.

All the courtiers and servants knew it was a bad decision, but they put into effect the bad decision, for the ruler had already made and proclaimed the decision.

And when it turned out to be a very bad decision indeed, those courtiers and servants were sacked by the now “furious” ruler.

When the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom makes a bad decision it always seems that others must take the blame.

Of course, such shruggery is not unusual in politics: one does not usually become a Prime Minister by being the sort that resigns from jobs. That is not how one climbs what Disraeli called the greasy pole to Prime Ministerial office.

But when Keir Starmer appointed Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States (thereby sacking a perfectly capable ambassador), it was very much his decision.

A decision which only the Prime Minister could make.

View differ on the reason for the appointment. Perhaps the sui generis problem of President Trump needed a sui generis appointment of a “Trump-Whisperer”. Perhaps, as many political journalists aver, it was simply because it was believed by senior Labour politicians that Mandelson somehow deserved a job in return for something or other.

The reason, however, really does not matter: it was plain that the Prime Minister had made a decision, and it was a decision announced as soon as possible.

And this is the important thing: it was the decision of the Prime Minister.

Yet it is others who are having to resign: the ambassador, the chief of staff, and now the head official at the foreign office.

We do not have full information as to the vetting process (and it is itself a remarkable security failure that we all know as much about this vetting process as we do, if you think about it).

It may be there was some form of communication between the foreign office and Downing Street, even if deft or unspoken, or it may be that the foreign office did not pass on the results of the vetting process so to give effect to the Prime Minister had already and publicly decided.

In either case, the responsibility for the decision is with the Prime Minister.

But the Prime Minister does not want to take responsibility for his decision.

He will keep sacking other people instead – none of whom made the decision, and none of whom are accountable to parliament for the decision that only he made.

Whether the Prime Minister misled parliament or the world at large about what he knew is now bogged-down in a depressing game of semantics.

What will not happen, it seems, is that the Prime Minister will take actual responsibility for his bad decision to appoint Mandelson as ambassador: for that would mean it was wrong of him to sack his chief of staff and the senior official at the foreign office.

All this shows how important it was for the House of Commons to take the decisions on disclosure of papers related to Mandelson’s appointment out of the hands of the Prime Minister.

That vote by the House of Commons was of immense political and constitutional significance. Members of Parliament decided that the Prime Minister could not be trusted to apply “national security” in disclosure matters.

The consequences of that momentous vote are now becoming more and more obvious.

Either we have Prime Ministerial accountability or we do not.

This is not a situation where a minister is being asked to take responsibility for decisions by officials – the Crichel Down situation.

That wider doctrine of ministerial accountability was always unrealistic: a minister cannot possibly know or approve of every decision in their department.

This is about a Prime Minister taking responsibility for their own decision – a high-level decision which only a Prime Minister can take.

And whatever further details is still come out about the matter, it will always have been the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Mandelson.

Once upon a time there was ruler who was “furious” at being expected to be a ruler.

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“How can we get rid of you?”

13th April 2026

The immense significance of the defeat of Orbán’s illiberal political machine and methodology

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The late Tony Benn set out five questions about power.

In his final speech to the House of Commons he said that on meeting any powerful person, one should always ask:

What power have you got?

Where did you get it from?

In whose interests do you exercise it?

To whom are you accountable?

And how can we get rid of you?

Hansard: The House will forgive me for quoting myself, but in the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?" If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

Of these five questions it is the last which is the ultimate question for any democracy – or indeed for any political system.

How can we get rid of you?

In a general election yesterday, the electorate of Hungary got rid of Viktor Orbán. It was an overwhelming defeat, and an overwhelming victory for his anti-corruption opponent Péter Magyar.

And it was a significant defeat for illiberalism, possibly the most significant defeat of illiberalism in recent years.

This is not to say that Magyar is necessarily a liberal hero. He was a colleague of Orbán in the ruling party until fairly recently, and it may well be that his views on a range of issues are nearer to Orbán than to his urban voters.

It may well be that Magyar is simply a non-corrupt version of Orbán.

But.

And it is a big but.

For Magyar to defeat Orbán meant he also had to defeat an extremely powerful and successful illiberal political machine and methodology.

A political machine and methodology that seemed, again until fairly recently, relentless and invincible.

The basis of this political machine and methodology was simple: motivate an electoral bloc with grievances, fear and cruelty.

If one motivated and then exploited this bloc of support then one could gain and retain power against the fragmented centre and the left, who will be demonised and marginalised.

One then rigs the media, legal and political systems to entrench this political machine. The constitution will be made to yield – either formally or by cowardice of those who could invoke nominal checks and balances.

Elections are also rigged or, if the results are unwelcome, discredited.

With diligence, this political machine and methodology can become a formidable and irresistible political force.

And it has, of course, much in common with Faragism in the United Kingdom and Trumpism in the United States, as well as with illiberal political movements in many other countries.

And one feature of the Orbán illiberalism was that it was open and unapologetic.

As this blog has previously described, Orbán expressly stated that democracy could and should be at odds with liberalism – undermining the cherished assumption of progressives and liberals.

Democracy vs Liberalism – the worrying but significant 2014 speech of Viktor Orbán 29th May 2021 One of the more complacent views of the last few decades is that there is a necessary link between democracy and liberalism. The notion that if you believe in one then you believe in the other. And, in turn, there is the converse view – that illiberals will tend to be undemocratic, if not actively anti-democratic. This is assumption is evident in a spate of books over the last few years about the death of democracy where, if you read carefully, they describe the (possible) death of liberal democracy. For – and this is still a shock for many – there is nothing necessarily liberal about a democracy. It is possible – and indeed not uncommon – for a conservative bloc to mobilise sufficient support to prevail in elections.

Orbán – and his political machine and methodology – was a one-man rebuttal, if not refutation, of the happy notion of liberal democracy.

He showed their could be a darker illiberal version of democracy too.

And because of his success, Orbán became a poster-boy for illiberals everywhere.

What he could implement in Hungary, could be put in place by others elsewhere.

Illiberal dominance of a democratic polity was possible.

Orbán showed the way.

But illiberalism within a democracy can only go so far, before it ceases to be a democracy. And while there is still opposition parties and politicians, and relatively free elections, there is always scope for push-back.

For example, while Hungary remained in the European Union, Hungary had at least the form of a democracy.

Magyar was not arrested, his party not prohibited.

And so outside-of-the-machine something came along that would meet the task of taking on and defeating that machine.

It seems that Magyar may be more liberal in policy than his predecessor, and it looks like that he will embrace rather than hinder the European Union.

That would be a welcome policy shift.

But the significance of his victory is not so much in policy terms than that it happened at all.

He showed that an entrenched and diligent illiberal political machine and methodology can be defeated – and in the glare of international interest and in the faces of those like Trump and Putin who supported Orbán.

The international significance of this defeat of illiberalism is immeasurable.

“How can we get rid of you?”

Like this.

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Why Melania Trump’s statement is a fascinating exercise in text and performance

10 April 2026

Hello and welcome to The Empty City blog, the new name of which is explained here.

A close reading of an odd public statement

Yesterday Melania Trump made an unexpected public statement.

The statement in its circumstances was odd. There was no formal requirement for her to make the statement, and there also seemed no particular reason for her to make the statement. The statement was not, for example, a response to any known media or legal development.

For viewers – and for many in Washington, it seems – the statement was out of the blue.

It was, in a word, odd.

This blog has no particular focus on Epstein and so on. There are many other online resources for anyone taking a close interest in the release (and non-release) of the Epstein files. This blog also is not concerned with the various documents and supposed documents and other material that may or may not connect Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.

But this blog does like a good close reading.

And so what can we say (and not say) about this particular text in performance?

Let us explore.

We shall start with the text.

It was a prepared text.

It was also as text which, at least in part, was very carefully drafted to deal with certain potential issues of legal liability and to explain (and explain away) certain pieces of evidence. The text indicates that it was put together, at least in part, by someone skilled and experienced in drafting.

One should not under-estimate Melania Trump (or indeed anyone in public life) and, but for her performance of the text, one could readily assume that she may have drafted the text herself.

As the text engages with issues of potential legal liability not expressly stated in the text, one can perhaps discount that it was written by ChatGPT or some other generative AI. Some generative AI can be very plausible indeed – including for formal and legal texts – but usually not about things which are not also stated in the text.

The impression conveyed by the text is that it was authored by someone skilled in drafting sensitive statements.

So if it was a prepared text then when was it prepared and for what purpose.

The immediate assumption of many (including in the media) is that the statement was prepared for the purpose of this performance.

That may well be the case.

But it may also be the case that the statement (or an earlier version of it) was prepared earlier for another purpose and perhaps for publication or for reading to an inquiry, rather than to be read to camera.

It reads as a statement to be circulated. It was not a statement well suited to be read out to camera.

Melania Trump, as anyone who saw the footage saw, seemed unfamiliar with the text.

She stumbles over certain words, some of which were significant and, if anything, required emphasis.

This stumbling indicates (but does not prove) that she was not the author of the text.

(That English is not her first language is not a relevant point here: there are many for whom English is not a first language who would not stumble in these circumstances.)

Of course, the stumbling may just be nerves – and who would not be nervous in such circumstances – but it is more likely to indicate a lack of familiarity with she was reading.

The stumbling also indicates (but does not prove) that the performance was not prepared for or rehearsed.

If so, such a lack of preparation or rehearsal contrasts with the careful composition of the text.

If a carefully drafted text is intended for performance then one can presume that similar effort is put into the performance as the text. (Unless the performer is (over-)confident in not need preparation or rehearsal.)

This therefore indicates (but does not prove) that the text was not intended for this particular performance.

The impression is that the performance to camera was a late decision and a pre-existing text was used for the performance.

But, if it is correct that the text was drafted by a legal or other adviser then we come to a tension, if not a contradiction.

For it is hard to see what competent and prudent legal or other adviser would have advised her to volunteer this statement, out of the blue.

A competent and prudent legal or other adviser would presumably say that unless there is a formal requirement or other pressing reason to make such a statement, then it would be wiser not to make a statement.

And so we have what looks like a statement put together (at least in part) by an adviser performed in circumstances which no sensible adviser would advise that it be performed.

Odd.

Perhaps the statement is to to (p)rebut an impending legal or media development and if so, all will become clear.

But on the basis of this text in its performance, it was a curious thing.

Overall, the impression conveyed is that this is an exercise in crisis management (hence the well-prepared text) broken-off mid-flow in an unexpected way.

This post is also cross posted at The Empty City substack, which is run in parallel with this blog.

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The silences after a threat of genocide

9 April 2026

The impotence of both constitutional law and international law

What happens when the leader of the most powerful military nation in the world threatens to commit genocide?

Like this:

Well, it seems, from the perspectives of constitutional law and international law, that nothing happens.

Things could happen, of course.

There are two constitutional mechanism within the United States constitution for removing Donald Trump from office. Neither has been used or seem likely to be used.

There are sorts of sanctions that the international community could place on Trump. None have been used or seem likely to be used.

And so, as I set out in Prospect today (click kere):

we have a situation where perhaps the most serious threat imaginable is made and there is nothing which will be done or can be done.

One can legitimately ask what the purpose is of either constitutional law or international law if not to deal with situations like this.

Law is intended to deal with big things as well as little things.

Some things are significant when they happen.

And some things are significant when they do not happen.

And what is perhaps far more significant than the unpleasant and extreme post of Trump is that nothing happened, at least in respect of constitutional law or international law.

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Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.